


Just cross the waters, I'll be okay

by CloveeD



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bad Friend Scott McCall (Teen Wolf), Creature Stiles Stilinski, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, I totally forgot Lydia exists I'm sorry I'm too sleepy, I'm sorry - a general state of being, M/M, Mutual Pining, Steter Valentine Exchange 2019, canon-divergent, season 1 rewrite, the last two episodes were basically me sleep talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-30 02:52:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17820422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CloveeD/pseuds/CloveeD
Summary: “You must be Stiles.” the Wolf said, stepping forward. Stiles froze atop his tree stump, heart in his throat.





	Just cross the waters, I'll be okay

**Author's Note:**

  * For [syriala](https://archiveofourown.org/users/syriala/gifts).



 

_Derek: you want forgiveness?_

_Peter: I want understanding. Do you have any idea--what it was like for me during those years?_

 

Episode 1 – Wolf Moon

 

"---Scott?" The sound of his own breathing seemed louder and more punishing than ever before. He wasn’t First Line, but the past hour felt like more running than Stiles’d ever remembered doing in practice. His heart was thudding hysterically just as he slowed his steps, the light of his phone barely reached two feet in front of him in this utter darkness. The silence of the woods at night raised goosebumps on his skin, after that **_beast attack_ ** earlier on their way home through the Preserve. Whatever it was, it was _huge_.

"Scott where are you?"

 

 _God, what the fuck was that?_ Stiles checked his phone again for a reply after apparently having lost Scott when they both ran in the dark, his other hand pressing hard into his side. Was it a _bear_? They had them in California, but never this far into Beacon Hills county. The thing had sounded much more like a rabid bear-sized dog? ---At least Stiles couldn't faint at the sight of blood - it was too dark here in the thickets. Despite the wetness on his hand, he was resolutely not looking down. Nope. No siree. Not going to happen. He rounded on a grove of trees, stumbling a little, righting himself against one of their lower branches, until the moon was visible again in a small clearing.

"Where are you?" Stiles hissed. Even the text message on his phone remained unresponsive. Scott might not even have grabbed his phone when they left Scott's house in a hurry. Since the two of them separated in this darkness, since that _thing_ attacked and started chasing, Scott had disappeared, and Stiles was terrified by the possibility that the beast was _finishing Scott off_? It didn't sound like the beast had so much paused, though, since it bit Stiles, and then began chasing after Stiles.

 

At the center of the clearing was a tree stump - it was easily the size of a kiddie pool, surprisingly dense wood under the moonlight for something so seemingly old and gnarled around its roots. If this tree had still been standing, there would have been no open skies like this to let moonlight through. Stiles was surprised he never noticed such an obvious landmark in the Preserve after having grown up here most of his life.

The good thing was, here Stiles could see a bit better, and choose _not_ to trip over those pesky tree roots and undergrowth blindly; the bad thing was (and Stiles could come up with a list, like, _this_ long) - here Stiles could also easily be seen by that _thing_ that was chasing them earlier. The creature had seemed giant in the dark, all guttural snarls and deep clicking growls. Stiles was going to laugh if, with more light, it turned out to be an over-achieving bullfrog bellowing from a nearby swamp (the bite that spanned from his hip to navel said clearly this wasn't the case).

He wobbled another step, feeling the sharp ache at his side pulling from all the panicked running, and then swore, putting weight on the old tree stump with a hand. ---Bad news, Stiles could now clearly see the blood that'd smeared all over his fingers, enough to leave handprints on the tree stump over which he was leaning.

"Oh...M'bleedin'...n'there's a shark in the ... forest..." that didn't sound right, though Stiles could feel a faint coming on.  His vision shifted, like the air and matters just displaced themselves when he'd expected them to be in one place and not another. Oh god, he was going to faint because he got a little blood on his hands, out here alone in the woods with a howling beast chasing after Scottie and him. Probably him, just him. Stiles was going to be slasher-b film fodder, he was going to be That Guy that got eaten because he faints at the sight of blood.

 

Low clicking growls resurfaced from his left, and Stiles had to press a shaky, wet hand to his mouth to suppress the curses that he'd have let out with a yelp. Shit. _Shit shit_ **_shit_ **. He really was going to be That Guy after all. The beast had caught up with Stiles. Picking its way through the thinning undergrowth on thick limbs, parts of the beast seemed oddly shaped. Its muzzle looked more dog-like than bear, Stiles could also see patches of its skin exposed amidst thick fur, bald and twisted. Maybe it was diseased. ---Not that it will matter when the thing will be making a feast out of Stiles’ flesh and bones.

Stiles shuddered, pressing against the tree trunk bark where he’d curled into a crouch - it was too late to make a run for it from the middle of this clearing. A beast like that could probably also smell its prey whether Stiles tried to sneak away or not. -----Stiles was going to get ripped up and eaten like a snack, and Dad was going to see --- he couldn’t finish the thought. This was his fault. This couldn’t happen.

 

He blinked, and Stiles froze at the sight of the beast’s snout **right before** Stiles’ chin. Quietly the beast snuffed around, and then turned its nose up to whiff the air, as though scenting for direction. Pale fog from its nostrils was now visible and nearly tangible, moist and warm against Stiles’ face. The beast then growled a sharp sound loudly without warning, Stiles feeling spit on his cheek, his own scalp digging back against the tree stump bark painfully. The beast twisted sharply around, stumping soft earth beneath its paws as though frustrated.

And then it was gone. Not like, ghosted, but it left, just like that, as though having met a dead end, cold trail, even if Stiles had been just beneath the beast’s nose, bleeding into jabby tree roots beneath his hip.

 

Episode 2 - Second Chances

 

“Wait, it was _chasing_ you?” Scott’s eyes went from slightly sleepy and still sour about last night, to saucers-wide. It was lunch, Wednesdays were the only days they didn’t have same classes all morning. After the freaky night before, Stiles’ lunch-packing skills were a little under-inspired, so both Dad and Stiles got bland boxes of salads and no sauce.

Stiles squinted at his bestie’s genuine surprise, but forgave Scott by snatching the bottled water from Scott’s lunch bag. To think, Stiles was worried to death that Scott might’ve been eaten last night. Only by morning had Stiles gotten a text back from Scott saying Scott had gone home after he got wheezy from the brief spook of ‘some animal’ they came across last night.

 

Stiles had been more than ready to show Scottie the humongous bleeding bite on his side this morning after reading that text, but like waking up from some wildly vivid nightmares as Stiles was known to have had back when he was younger and going through some stuff, the bite mark was gone in the morning. The only reason Stiles knew it hadn’t been a dream had been the bandage that he’d slapped over his flank by the time he stumbled home way past midnight.

He remembered his entire body feeling like a giant sore muscle, everything was tight and aching from all the running and adrenaline surge, and he’d made a mental note to get a tetanus shot in the morning. That thing --- that beast --- it sure looked like it had rabies or _something_. But by the morning, even the soreness was gone. Stiles had peeled the bandage off, and took a picture of the bloody bandage with his phone just as evidence to himself that he hadn’t dreamt the whole thing up. Even after he showed Scottie the picture, though, it didn’t seem like Scott was convinced that his best friend wasn’t just pranking Scott again.

 

Stiles swiped Scott’s green water bottle too for good measure. Being dismissed was thirsty work.

 

Episode 3 - Pack Mentality

 

When Stiles’ eyes next snapped open, there was dirt on his tongue, and he grimaced, the taste clinging to the insides of his mouth even after he spat the sandy grains out. All five of his fingers on one hand were somehow buried in wet earth within arm’s reach before him, the wooden surface of the stump he was facing down atop of scratched irritably as he heaved himself up.

What the hell.

Birds tweeted at Stiles unhelpfully as he surveyed his surroundings. He’d thought that had been a dream, that he’d pushed past the back door of his house, unfurled beneath the full moon tonight, roots digging into pleasantly moist earth all around him, stretching all his limbs as far as they could reach as though having just woken from a very, very long sleep. Stiles glanced down, and surely enough, both his bare feet were covered in dirt. He’d ripped parts of his pajamas at some point, a few twigs and dead leaves still stuck on the cotton plaid. He ran a hand through his own hair, and it came away with wetness, this time it was dew water, not blood.

Stiles stuck a finger into his mouth and sucked away the water droplets without thinking.

It took him another forty minutes at least to walk back home, luckily it was early enough at dawn that he wasn’t going to be late for school yet. He was oddly rejuvenated instead of feeling sore beyond belief for having walked apparently this far out at night and back in the morning - it’d been a while since he’d sleepwalked. Dad didn’t usually bring the sleepwalking thing up as it was thought that that phase was truly and finally behind the Stilinski household. That’d been a tough time, Mom had been sick, Dad was still a Deputy barely scraping it together, and they had a son that was causing all kinds of trouble like the selfish little jerk that Stiles was. A psychiatrist had belatedly diagnosed him and mandated school counselling given the givens, but still, Stiles didn’t want to bring reminders of that time up again. He decided not to let Dad know at all, if possible, about this.

 

~

 

Stiles re-examined the rear-view mirror - Scott was still chatting behind Stiles’ Jeep with the new girl whose initials were AA, Stiles made a note to find out the full name later if this new girl stuck around long enough. Maybe it was because of this morning - or that Stiles was keeping a secret from Dad again - that for the entire day at school, Stiles’d been extra paranoid. He’d realized only after he got to school, that his fingernails weren’t clean enough, dirt still caked beneath his fingernails, though if nothing else it only got him a mildly disgusted glance from Mindy sitting next to Stiles. Scott, who sat behind Stiles, had looked bewitched as soon as AA showed up in class with her sweet dimples.

Scott only got into the Jeep after Stiles honked eventually, and even in the passenger’s seat Scott was still smiling like he was high. Stiles supposed he was, high on _love_. So even when Stiles started chewing on his fingernails again, with all that forest dirt still stuck underneath, Scott didn’t say anything like normally would have. AA turned out to be Allison, who was an only child that’d just moved here with her parents. Her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Argent, moved around a lot for business, so Allison expressed gratefulness for Scott taking the initiative to help out the new kid, and by the looks of things, Stiles had a feeling that Scott was head over heels already, big time.

“Heard there was another 10-55 today.” Stiles offered, at which Scott’s big smile faded into confusion. Stiles decided not to push, waving a hand, “Nevermind, go write her love notes in glitter pens, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” And well, it was only a _possible dead body_ , not an actual dead body confirmed, or a 187, murders would be even cooler, murder was what got Scottie and Stiles out that first night in the woods. Nothing ever happens in this place, after all. Stiles tossed another empty water bottle into the recycle bin by the entrance, and sighed, antsy beneath his skin.

 

Episode 4  - Magic Bullet

 

When Derek Hale showed up after years of disappearing from Beacon Hills county, standing there like a creep in the Preserve where Stiles had taken Scott to recover his lost puffer, Stiles did _not_ agree to lending Derek a hand in any shape or form later, like now, like this super random but intense visit to the vet, on an evening when Dr. Deaton wasn’t anywhere to be found.

“You want me to _cut off your arm_ ? Are you _on drugs right now_ ?” Stiles took a step back at the waning glare that was still pretty scary. Derek Hale had this sort of wild look in his eyes, face pale and sweating all over, and earlier Stiles had just witnessed Derek throw up a bunch of black, _inexplicable mysterious substance_. “I don’t think I can---uh…”

Derek looked like a man that’d found out upon reaching Mount Doom with the Ring that you have to pay an entry fee at its gates, and he was all out of cash. “You faint at the sight of blood?”

Stiles held the bone saw up half in self-defense, half for dear life, “No, but I might at the sight of a _cut-off arm_!”

 

Their Mexican standoff lasted another minute from either sides of the examination slab, before Derek began blacking out again. Stiles could testify that he now knew first-hand how heavy a grown man made purely of muscle was when they lose consciousness. He embarrassingly went down just as Derek passed out, Derek’s chin making a loud, painful-looking contact with the slab as they dropped to the floor. Stiles by now was hyperventilating something like “I still don’t know what to do with a dead body yet ohmigod wait--”

Derek made a pained noise, apparently having been knocked back awake by the table - entirely intentional on Stiles’ part of course - and just like that, Derek began untensing.

There was a pause, before Derek grunted, “....what the fuck?”

 

In a way, Stiles wanted to note down this memorable moment (the bone saw aside), that Derek Hale with his how-ever-many pounds of muscle shirtless on the floor holding Stiles’ hand had just said the word ‘fuck’; he wasn’t sure why this was noteworthy but it was, worthy of noting. On the other hand, they were both looking down at Derek’s arm that previously had been oozing black stuff and growing dark veins. The dark veins were completely gone at the moment, in place was instead a small cluster of purple flowers that were blooming like its the top of the morning and like Derek’s bullet hole (which was rapidly closing on itself, healing like a dream) was a rich patch of garden soil.

Before Stiles could ask, Derek ripped the flowers out of his bullet hole, and tossed the flowers way further than Stiles thought necessary. “Wolfsbane.”

Stiles considered this, carefully letting go of Derek’s hand, “Do they usually do that? Are they like, alien flowers that you brought from your obviously alien planet far away?”

Derek eyed Stiles thoughtfully as he recovered his shirt. A normal person, Stiles figured, would ask ‘ _how did you do that?_ ’ - Derek was no normal person, evidently. “No.” was all bushy-browed dude said, before darting back out of the vet’s clinic without thanks. Not that Stiles could be certain any of this had been his own doing. He simply assumed this meant Derek’s life-and-death crisis had been averted, and before Stiles left the clinic, he couldn’t help it, he took the little cluster of purple flowers with him. They would look nice in the Stilinski garden, he thought. Alien freaky healing flowers, maybe. It was high time he took care of Mom’s garden again for once.

 

Episode 7  - Night Walk

 

The howling was growing louder these days. Last night, Stiles twisted hard enough in his sleep to have ripped his pillow case with his bare hands - freaky again. Did he say that nothing ever happens in this place? Freaky things were happening every day now. Or every night, rather. Dad tried to give Stiles a hug this morning when he came home from night shift, leaving Stiles extra-wary that Dad might be starting to notice signs of Stiles’ unusual sleepwalking episodes lately.

He was frequently dreaming of those smoggy scenes again. Heat scorching the earth, sucking all life dry from a mantle of power that had once connected tightly with his roots underground. He used to take their offerings, crazed, imbalanced lone wolves that the Hales wrangled to the ground if none of their social rituals could calm the unstable creatures down. He remembered drinking from the Hales’ sacrifices, he’d especially favoured the one that did all the slaughtering, the blue-eyed wolf.

And then flames, pain, screaming, fury. His bark curled in hate, his stump covered in the ashes of his dead guardians. These deaths were not sacrifices, these deaths of his guardians left his trunk vulnerable, his roots dry and lifeless. In desperation he began drinking from lei lines themselves, pulling his underground protection back inward to keep himself from dying. He needed his guardians back. He needed _life_ back.

Stiles woke up feeling old and cracked and parched. A glance at his surroundings confirmed that he’d sleepwalked again. He barely remembered the dreams, but his mouth always taste ashy and unpleasant, and he felt utterly alone, beyond the level of loneliness that he ought to be feeling despite his situation. Almost like it wasn’t his own feelings, the hatred buzzing on his skin not his own rage.

“I should just store water bottles here if we’re going to keep running into each other like this.” Stiles said, patting the tree stump that had once again become his bed. Amazingly enough, neither of his feet were scratched up from all the night walking lately, despite the dirt, and there wasn’t ---- real acute fear. Stiles would’ve expected himself to be more scared, with all that was happening without logical explanations lately.

 

Upon his walk home - which somehow had become routine in the span of 3 evenings like this since the last full moon - Stiles thought he felt paws hit the earth not far from himself again. His senses were really messing with him on nights like these, often it was like the forest floor was all part of his extending feelers or something, soft dead leaves rustled to tell him things, critters welcomed him noisily, and despite not being able to see in the dark, Stiles thought back and realized at no point in the course of two evenings where he’d woken up on the tree stump, had he tripped blindly over plants in the dark. Which was exceptionally unusual, if you knew him at all.

Home was within sight, and Stiles had just reached the treeline, when the howling sounded again - wildly closer to his person than he’d have expected. It was a wolf’s howl, there was no doubts about it. The sound was forlorn, of a single lone wolf, with a touch of despair, and Stiles’ toes curled into the earth beneath. He’d been hearing this sound everywhere he went lately, but this was the first time Stiles could be inexplicably certain that he was standing merely 5 or 6 feet away from the Wolf.

And it was a Wolf. It howled like a Wolf, it growled like a Wolf. Stiles’ mind flashed back to that first night of full moon, him pressing back against the grit of the stump in the forest, the monster breathing against his face. Terror did not drench Stiles’ skin this time - maybe it was all the freaky things that’d been happening around Stiles lately, maybe it was simply because Stiles’d been listening to this Wolf howling nonstop.

Like a wailing child, the howling seemed to say, “Oh, please don't go—we'll eat you up—we love you so!”

 

Derek Hale had visited the other day, just popping up like the abrupt creeper the dude was, all leather jacket and intense GQ model face, and said, “Stiles, you’re a dryad.” --- an announcement which left Stiles deeply unimpressed.  

“A dryad? Like a tree? I’m a tree?” He’d take Hogwarts and sparkly wands any day.

 

But right now, Stiles glanced back at his house, and it felt natural to turn and tell the Wolf in the dark. “Then from far away across the world he smelled good things to eat, so he gave up being king of the wild things.”

He was pretty sure a red-eyed monster in the dark did not expect to be read quotes from Where the Wild Things Are, because the Wolf evidently paused, growled a sharp little sound, and then as though in confusion, did nothing more. Stiles could feel those red eyes watching as Stiles padded back into his house.

He left a bowl of water and Dad’s secret stash of bacon on a dish out on the porch that night while Dad was on night shift until the next noon. By the morning, the bowl and the dish were empty, half a greasy paw print still visible on the wooden step.

 

Episode 8 - Lunatic

 

Stiles stopped trying to tell Scott what was going on - it was too much. First Stiles got attacked in the dark by some bear-wolf-monster-thing, then Stiles started drinking an abnormal amount of bottled water, liking the taste of soil, getting goosebumps when some kid turned the bunsen burner too high near him in Chemistry, sleepwalking repeatedly, hearing things, seeing things, feeding and talking to … the Wolf that very well might’ve been the culprit that’d bit him in the first place. And now that he looked back, Derek’s revelation was starting to sound _reasonable._ None of this was _normal_. Stiles was like, 89% certain that if he told the school counsellor any of this, Stiles was going to be sent straight to Eichen House in a straightjacket and that would be too much on the Stilinski monthly income at this point in time. Scott was busy with Allison, trying to fend off Lydia and the Lacrosse jocks from hijacking Allison’s time, so Stiles left Scott to it.

Stiles had his hands kept busy with creeper Derek’s freak-logic (because the Hagrid-esque announcement aside, the dude had difficulty telling Stiles anything else about what was exactly was going on, y’know, _communication_ , not one of Derek’s strengths), and that Wolf that was still tailing Stiles with his lonely cries everywhere Stiles went. Stiles had began leaving out water and meat bowls since that first night the Wolf finished Dad’s bacon stash. Stiles had to go get more in secret.

The school was abuzz once again on this day because of more dead bodies. Something about two men in the woods found dead, the cause of death still undetermined. That was the fourth death in Beacon Hills by now, since the day Stiles and Scott went into the Preserve to look for that dead body. The first dead body case had hit a dead end at this point, from the way Dad was still pouring over the files at home on his own time. The second one had been some sort of animal attack at a Blockbuster’s.

 

Stiles confirmed the rumors of the two deaths in the woods by the afternoon using his backdoor access to the police station he’d grown up around. Dad had yet to bring these files home, because preliminary theory seemed to again be animal attack - but the coronar noted that some of the claw and bite wounds were post-mortem, and that there were wooden splinters from the killing blows that could have been from an accident that knocked the men out in the first place.

The wooden splinters caught Stiles’ attention. Ever since Derek confirmed Stiles’ suspicions that were too wild to believe on his own, Stiles’d been looking into dryad mythologies - there were a lot of different versions, and none of it seemed to quite match exactly what Stiles was going through. He asked Derek how the dude came to this conclusion, and the dude only said, “Smelled them before.” which explained exactly nothing.

Still.

One man that died in the woods and was mauled afterward could be an accident, two full grown men, together, on the same night, was what, a coincidence? Stiles giddily shoved a few more curly fries into his mouth as he pointed out that Dad had that _look_ on his face, like there was a _case_ to be made here. And Stiles’ heart rate raced connecting the possibilities between his own supernatural phenomenon and wooden splinters descriptions in the evidence folder.

 

Episode 9 - Wolf’s Bane

 

Garrison Myers died after a brief hospital stay. 

The school bus driver’s bulging eyes and bloody teeth were what had Stiles scrambling to wake up from his nightmare yesterday morning, Myers’ blood curdling screams still ringing in Stiles’ ears. He once again found himself waking up on the tree stump that now had a tiny, reed-thin sprout on the side that faced the sun every morning. By now Stiles had named the sprout Robin, because hell or high waters, Stiles was going to be Batman to _somebody_ out here, somehow.

He carefully maneuvered around Robin the sprout, sat up cross-legged atop his tree stump, and pulled out one of the bottled waters from the box he’d hauled over next to the stump for this very purpose. He drained a bottle with experience, giving Robin the last mouthful and complimented Robin on that new leaf Robin sprout. A fresh, soft, dewy sort of green unfurling thing.

Stiles habitually shook his fingers out because he usually woke up covered in dirt and leaves, and upon chewing on one of his fingernails again, this time he spat his fingers out immediately with an intense look of disgust.

“Holy _shi_ \--what the fuck was that?!”

 

It was the taste in his mouth, spread from beneath his fingernails, that was nothing like the rich, dark earth that Stiles had inexplicably gotten used to by now. Instead, the dark coloured substance wedged beneath Stiles’ fingernails taste coppery this time, a sharp acrid sort of shock that signaled through his taste buds. Perhaps the worst that made Stiles flinch was not exactly because he thought he recognized what this taste was (how did he come to this, being able to recognize the taste of blood by chewing on his own fingernails?) but for a few seconds there, Stiles thought to himself in a tone he’d never heard himself use during the daytime before.

 _Ah,_ he thought, _delicious_.

 

Episode 11 - Formal

 

The first and only time in recent years that Stiles got snappy with Scott was this morning - the taste of blood still hadn’t left Stiles’ mouth, and he’d been extra anxious all morning. And then Jackson shoved by, probably unhappy that Stiles shot Lydia an extra glance yesterday or some such, “Nice flowers, Stilinski, should wear some coconuts with that.” (Later, it was vindictive to learn that the stupid comment offended Danny.) There was, apparently, an ivy sprig of white tendrils* snaking behind one of his ears that he hadn’t been aware of, being so preoccupied with the worries about murder excitement, and Scott just gave Stiles that wide-eyed look, “I just thought it’s one of your things.”

Stiles would apologize later. Right now he had a lot on his mind.

 

He called off sick early through the school counsellor who at least was understanding enough about his anxiety disorder, and Stiles arrived at his stump with a new pack of bottled water for Robin in the early evening. “I’m missing the formal for you, you know?” He uncapped the last water bottle leftover from his last pack of supplies stuffed against the roots. “You and I are with the good guys, Dark Knight and all, you’d better not be murdering innocent people in my sleep.”

Robin the sprout quietly swayed in the evening breeze.

“They’re not innocent.” --- came an unfamiliar voice, and Stiles all but flew off of his tree stump, if his first instinct hadn’t been to cover Robin the sprout with his own body.

Maybe he wasn’t in his Zen zone tonight, not having sleepwalked to the tree stump or something, his whacky extra senses hadn’t warned Stiles of the approacher tonight, even though without logic, Stiles’ instincts told him that this was the Wolf.

The moon was at its full peak tonight, and Stiles could see the Wolf - a man of decent height, wearing a leather jacket and red button-up instead of his wolf pelt, as though the Wolf was the one going to the school prom tonight, not Stiles, who was still missing the damned thing.

 

“You must be Stiles.” the Wolf said, stepping forward. Stiles was frozen atop the tree stump, heart in his throat. “Derek’s been telling me so much ab----wait----oh come _on_ ….” the Wolf trailed into a series of indignant noises, and it was only because of this and the Wolf’s suddenly blinded behaviour that Stiles realized - in his fear, he’d done exactly what he did that first night he clung to this tree stump for dear life when the monster wolf had chased him into this clearing. Somehow, the Wolf could no longer see, hear, or smell Stiles when Stiles clung onto his tree stump, terrified and wanting to hide.

One of dryads’ abilities, Wikipedia had wisely detailed, was to hide in their trees entirely.

The Wolf growled loudly enough in frustration that Stiles snapped out of his reverie. “I’m sure you’re still there. Derek told me, about the new dryad that helped him. You’ve been helping me, too.” He gestured vaguely, Stiles knew the Wolf was referring to the water and bacon bowls he’d been putting out lately. The Wolf did look ---- unlike that first time they’d met, when the monster’s pelt had been all patchy as though diseased.

 _Burnt_ , Stiles’ mind supplied with a renewed surge of hysterical rage that he knew by now wasn’t his own.

 

“I don’t know why you’ve been helping me but,” the Wolf sighed long and defeated, shoulders slumping, as he folded himself back down to sit against one of the trees in the clearing. “I thought you knew.”

What did Stiles know? Stiles knew nothing, fool.

“Those people, they were all part of the arson. They killed my family.” The last few words were bitten out between gritted teeth. Stiles felt another shudder throughout his body, like phantom pain, like a memory of all skin liquifying in fire and terror. “They’re not innocent.”

 

The Wolf seemed to take a moment to draw some breaths in to calm down. The Wolf, in comparison to the frothing monster that first night they met in the Preserve, truly did seem comparably better. Less patchy, for one. Less insane, too, maybe.

 

“Then again, I guess neither am I anymore, huh.” the Wolf added. His face was downcast, his hands running through his hair over and over again. The Wolf’s shoulders were shaking, and Stiles felt, rather than saw, his Wolf with blue eyes silently crying for a very, very long time.

 

Episode 12 - Code Breaker

 

Stiles poured Dad a celebratory glass of green smoothie - at Dad’s constipated look, Stiles slid a slice of bacon over with the nutritious drink, successfully unfurling those knitted eyebrows. Dad was celebrating the solved crime of that years-old case - the Hale fire that killed 11 people. Today, the newpapers were headlining Kate Argent’s name across their front pages, as well as a picture of a Peter Hale still in hospital scrubs, looking pale but awake. It was a miracle of justice, one headline said. The coma victim of this heinous mass-murder woke yesterday afternoon, just a week after Kate Argent’s body was found, throat slashed through with what was conclusively massive animal claws.

This time round, Stiles left no splinters in her skin, simply held her with vine upon vine, and flinched until it was over. He was covered in her blood, and Peter was covered in her blood. Peter shook in Stiles’ hold until the morning, and they took care of everything.

 

“What are you going to do now, Mr. Hale?” one reporter had said, hazardously dodging the nurse’s attempt to keep the journalists out of the room so that Mr. Hale could recover.

Get a haircut, was Stiles’ first guess. There were probably more important things than grooming, when you first wake up from a 6-year coma, but Stiles didn’t know what those things might be. He took Peter’s advice and got Dr. Deaton (a druid! Scott’s boss was like a passive and retired Gandolf!) to put proper wards around Stiles’ tree roots. It felt like what a pore cleansing probably feels like if Mom, bless her soul, was to be believed. Now that the Nemeton was secure and warded, Robin the sprout had gained three whole inches, Stiles was feeling much less murderous or thirsty. Peter gave good advice, it turned out, when Peter was calm and not prowling around with that hysterical fury that Stiles no longer sensed from the Wolf.

Derek had a talk (by which Stiles meant the two werewolves fought for a whole night while Stiles nodded off on his stump) with Peter, and there was family drama that Stiles didn’t really want to butt in on. There was still a lot to unpack from the Hales, evidently.

Blue eyes looked into the journalist’s camera, and for a moment, Stiles forgot to breath.

 

“I would like to go home now.”

 

 

 _And carry on_  
_Just cross the waters, I'll be okay_  
_'Cause I've been loved, I've been loved enough today_  
_I know your fears are hidden well beneath your wind_  
_So don't be long, leave me here, let me belong_  
_Let me belong_  
  
~Coeur de pirate - Carry On

**Author's Note:**

> Exchange Prompts Checked:  
> season 1 rewrite canon-divergent  
> stiles sides with peter  
> peter bites stiles and stiles turns out to be another creature, not nogitsune  
> Pining  
> bad friend scott  
> angst/hurt/comfort  
> not smut-heavy, AUs, or established relationships  
> ~  
> *an ivy sprig of white tendrils: flower language means "Anxious to please; Affection"
> 
> This is late (IM SORRY) but, I really hope this brings someone a bit of enjoyment! 
> 
> Also thank Lou, Lavender Lotion, Mal, Spookymiscreant, and Ro for listening to me wail because all jokes aside the past 3 weeks have been some of the worst time of my real life and unfortunately this event got influenced as a result.


End file.
